Grid Standards and Codes

NREL provides leadership and technical expertise in the development of standards and
codes to improve the integration, interconnection, and interoperability of electric
load and generation technologies.

In its standards and codes initiatives, NREL works with a range of partners, including
laboratories and government agencies; electric utilities; standards development organizations;
industry collaborations and organizations; universities; private companies; and state,
local, and tribal governments.

Capabilities

To support technical analysis and studies, NREL develops modeling and simulations
to describe the problems under study. Using capabilities and resources at NREL laboratories,
the standards and codes team excels at developing rapid simulations that take advantage
of advanced concepts such as hardware-in-the-loop testing. Such methods of testing
actual equipment coupled with computer simulation provide added assurance and validation
of methods and solutions.

Projects

Sharp increases in photovoltaics (PV) adoption have given a sense of urgency to the
standards development process. By providing leadership and direction for the full revision of interconnection standard IEEE 1547—as well as the two standards currently under revision, IEEE 1547.1 and UL 1741—the
Accelerating Systems Integration Standards team is addressing this urgency. The goal
of this work is to accelerate the development of interconnection and interoperability
requirements in order to take advantage of new and emerging distributed energy resource
technologies, such as grid-supportive inverters and energy storage. New conformance
test procedures in UL 1741SA and IEEE 1547.1 are being validated at NREL's Energy System Integration Facility.

Progress toward an advanced and interoperable grid requires new relationships and
interactions among distributed energy resources and with the power system. Immature
levels of interoperability impose costs, reduce efficiency, and can prevent devices
from working together at all. In this project, NREL is collaborating with three other
national laboratories to establish a strategic vision of grid interoperability and
provide guidance for implementation. This includes working with industry to articulate
general interoperability requirements along with methodology and tools that support
the information and communications technology application of distributed energy resource
integration.

The electricity grid is vital to our security, economy, and way of life and provides
the foundation for essential services that Americans rely on every day. This project
is a collaboration among NREL and six other national laboratories with the goal to
develop and validate interconnection and interoperability standards for electrical
generation, storage, and loads that ensure cross-technology compatibility, encourage
harmonization of jurisdictional requirements, and enable high deployment levels without
compromising grid reliably, safety, or security.

The goal of this project is to develop streamlined and accurate methods for New York
utilities to determine interconnection requirements for PV installations. The project
requires collaboration with the New York Department of Public Service, New York State
Energy Research and Development Authority, New York Power Authority, and New York
investor-owned utilities and provides technical expertise, research, and testing methods
to address grid-integration issues in New York State. Methods include providing analysis
for resolving interconnection issues, developing fast screens, and identifying solutions
following the paths of states such as California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts.